Robert Silvers, Longtime Editor Of 'The New York Review Of Books,' Dies At 87

Robert Silvers, co-founder of The New York Review of Books, speaks at the 2006 National Book Awards. Silvers died Monday after a brief illness. He was 87.

STUART RAMSON
/ AP

Originally published on March 21, 2017 10:12 am

Robert Silvers, whose long career as an editor included terms at The Paris Review, Harper's and, most notably, as co-founder of The New York Review of Books, died Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

Silvers launched The New York Review of Books in 1963 with Barbara Epstein, intending to raise the standard of book reviewing. In its pages, a given book under consideration could be little more than a jumping-off point for an extended essay that directly engaged the political and cultural moment.

He encouraged writers to craft each review as a vigorous intellectual argument, and delighted in pairing reviewers with books that challenged their personal or political worldview.

Silvers was loath to give interviews, and sought no measure of the fame in which his writers often basked, though he was renowned within New York literary circles.